Uses of Nucleus Hives by Roger Patterson

Some Uses for a Nucleus

Most beekeepers will develop their own methods, but few will include the nucleus as part of their management system. This I think is a pity, as with a little planning there are many things you can do with them, but of course you will need to know how the bees are going to react, and this will come with experience. More mistakes are likely to be made than with a full colony, but the benefits can be great.

In my view most beekeepers are far too rigid with colony numbers. I think an apiary should be a fairly fluid thing with possibly a fairly stable number of honey producing colonies, and a varying number of support colonies, mainly nuclei that service them. Numbers can be reduced by selling or uniting.

Here are a few ideas...

• Colony increase. This could be for your own use or for sale.
• Queen Mating. A nucleus is an excellent way of getting a queen mated, and it can be made up early in the spring, and be used for mating several queens during the season, or simply made up for mating one queen. When mated she can be left to prove she is laying properly before introducing her into a full colony.
• Hiving a swarm or cast. A five frame box will take most swarms, and if equipment is not available a nucleus hive will buy time for 3 or 4 weeks until transferring to a full hive.
• A rest home for an old, but good queen. Many times you will have a queen that produces good daughters, but is getting old. Instead of heading a full colony, she can be kept going for some time in a nucleus.
• Requeening. There are those who advocate requeening with a nucleus so the surrounding bees know the queen. (see Double screen method)
• Getting a queenless colony queenright. Very often a colony that has been queenless for some time will not accept a queen of any kind, and a queen cell will leave the colony without brood for too long. A queenright nucleus can be transferred into a brood chamber and united to the queenless colony in the normal way. This will quickly give the queenless colony a laying queen and emerging brood.
• A frame with queen cells on can be transported easily between apiaries in a nucleus.
• On many occasions I have over wintered a 4-5 frame nucleus in a nucleus hive, but they need to be well fed, and have a high proportion of young bees, with preferably a young queen. If transferred to a full hive early in the spring these are often amongst the best producers at the end of the year. This is a simple way of making good winter losses before the winter sets in.
• Due to the queen mating problems I have been highlighting, I am developing a management system where I have one nucleus for every four honey producing colonies. It doesn't matter what strength they are, and I believe it would be better to have them variable in strength and condition so they can be used in several situations. For some reason at the time of writing there is a high failure rate of queens where they become drone layers, are superseded, or simply "disappear" during the summer months. A nucleus with a laying queen is a quick and easy solution.

There are occasions when a nucleus can be used for several purposes, so let me give you a hypothetical situation. If you have a spare queencell early in the season from a good colony, you can make up a 2 or 3 frame nucleus from old combs you wish to change. This can be with adhering bees, or the bees shaken off and young bees shaken in from another colony. Leave for 24 hours and give it a queencell. When numbers build up you can add other combs that need replacing, but without adhering bees. When the nucleus hive is full you can transfer the unit to a brood chamber, but keep filling with combs, minus bees, that you wish to replace from your main colonies. When the brood chamber is full you can do a comb change or shook swarm, but during that time you may be able to have several queens mated in the unit. At any time during the summer you can do what you like with it such as bolster another colony, or when it is still small you can change places with a colony that is showing signs of swarming, so you are milking flying bees from it. If you have weaker nuclei you wish to strengthen, then you can change positions. At the end of the season you have an extra colony and have made up any winter losses before they occur. Just think of the advantages, you have the opportunity to raise new queens and test them before they go into full colonies, you are changing combs, helping reduce swarming, making increase, and have a spare queen and bees available if you need them.

Be prepared to move nuclei around the apiary, as they can be weakened of flying bees if they are getting too strong, or strengthened if they need building up. If they need weakening they can be moved in stages towards another colony that is in need of strengthening, then moved some distance away, allowing the flying bees to bolster either a weaker or honey producing colony. I do not subscribe to the view that moving bees and combs increases disease, as my view is that the beekeeper should make disease checking part of their normal inspections, and to be vigilant at all times.

Making a nucleus

In making a nucleus we must understand three things...

• Bees from two colonies will often fight, but those from three or more won't.
• If a new unit is made up in the same apiary the flying bees will usually go back to their original site.
• The normal rules of queen or queencell introduction apply.

We should also see that the nucleus has the means to survive and prosper by ensuring...

• There are enough bees to cover the brood.
• There is enough food to last until your next visit.
• There is enough room to expand.
• They have a queen, or if not they have a queen cell, eggs, or young larvae from which to raise one.
• It is strong enough to defend itself. A small entrance will help.
• There is no Foul Brood disease in the apiary.
• They are not sited in full sun where they can overheat.

A nucleus can easily be made by either splitting a single colony, or by taking bees and/or frames from several colonies, and giving it either a queen in a cage or queen cell, either protected or 24 hours later.

For making several smaller nuclei from a single colony there is the Cloake method (also called Cook method), where a colony is split into nucleus boxes equally spaced around the original colony position, with the original hive removed. The flying bees split themselves up equally. The easy way is to make increase from within your own bees in the same apiary, and there are several ways this can be done without the adult population flying back home, all of which will need a little knowledge, but without knowledge you shouldn't be attempting it anyway. The normal ways are to put the nucleus on the site of an existing nucleus or colony, or to ensure there are enough young bees that haven't flown, either by shaking in several extra frames, or enticing young bees onto frames of unsealed brood. Another way is to lay a cloth or sack on the ground and shake several brood combs onto it. The flying bees will soon take wing leaving non flying bees that can be shaken into the nucleus.

As with all aspects of beekeeping a sound knowledge of the basics will help you understand more of what happens inside a hive, and there are many more uses for nuclei than appear here. In my view nuclei are an important part of apiary management and should be used imaginatively.

Roger Patterson